The Patriot Post Friday Digest 12-6-2013

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The Patriot Post Friday Digest 12-6-2013
From The Federalist Patriot
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THE FOUNDATION

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported.” –John Adams

GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
Nelson Mandela, RIP

Nelson Mandela, the former South African president who helped end apartheid, died Thursday. He was 95.

Mandela earned respect and praise because he went beyond the African National Congress days of violence to truly advocate for peace, much as MLK did in the 1960s. The difference is that MLK had a national narrative to appeal to, namely “that all men are endowed by their Creator,” but Mandela had no such foundational narrative. In effect, he wrote South Africa’s declaration of Liberty for all people. His 1993 Nobel Prize – shared with his former oppressor, South African President F.W. de Klerk – was earned by both of them.

The Wall Street Journal summed it up1: “The bulk of his adult life, Nelson Mandela was a failed Marxist revolutionary and leftist icon, the Che Guevara of Africa. Then in his seventies he had the chance to govern. He chose national reconciliation over reprisal, and he thus made himself an historic and all too rare example of a wise revolutionary leader. … He won the country’s first free presidential elections in 1994 and worked to unite a scarred and anxious nation. He opened up the economy to the world, and a black middle class came to life. After a single term, he voluntarily left power at the height of his popularity. Most African rulers didn’t do that. … Mandela became the biggest of African men by refusing to act like a typical African ‘Big Man.’ He transcended his party’s history of Marxism, tribalism and violence. The continent and world were fortunate to have him.”

Mandela was a symbol of Liberty, which serves as a contrast to our own first black president. Mandela earned his place in the history of advocating for Liberty. Fellow Nobel laureate Obama, on the other hand, has earned nothing, and promotes policies which lead, inevitably, to rule of men2 not Rule of Law3.

ECONOMY, REGS & TAXES
Changing the Subject

When things aren’t going your way, change the subject. That’s what Barack Obama did this week in hopes of grabbing onto something – anything – to distract the American people from the man-caused disaster known as ObamaCare. But is his chosen shiny object, the economy, really his strong suit?

In remarks Wednesday, Obama declared that income inequality is the “defining challenge of our time,” and he promised to focus on it “for the rest of my presidency.” He warned of “a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that has jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain – that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead.” What he didn’t mention is the inconvenient truth that inequality has increased more during his presidency4 than that of any predecessor. Never mind that, though; his mouthpiece, Jay Carney, laid blame for rising inequality at the feet of George W. Bush5.

As is his default setting, Obama’s solution is for the government to take away more of your freedom, redistribute more of your income, and mandate a higher minimum wage – all of which inevitably hits the middle class and hinders job growth. Indeed, it’s telling that median middle class household income has actually fallen during the Obama “recovery.”

Speaking of job growth, 203,000 jobs were created in November, dropping the headline unemployment rate from 7.3% to 7%. Of course, a consider measure of that was workers returning from furlough after the government shutdown.

As for the economy, there is some good news out there, if tempered. GDP grew by 3.6% in the third quarter, well above the previous estimate of 2.8% and far outpacing the average of 1.2% over the last three quarters. The only trouble is that much of the growth came from expanding inventories, not consumer demand, and that means fourth-quarter growth could stagnate. Some economists estimate6 that it will fall to just 1%.

In the end, Obama’s pivot to income inequality may fall on deaf ears. According to Gallup, people who actually think the “gap between rich and poor” is anywhere approaching the “defining challenge of our time” is just 1%. As for the 99%, we’re just worried about the anemic economy.

NATIONAL SECURITY
Syria’s Chemical Weapons to Be Destroyed

Back in September, the Obama administration was still floundering in its dealings with Syria and that nation’s chemical weapons. Obama had unwisely set a “red line” over chemical weapons use, and then didn’t back up his words – well, unless you count Secretary of State John Kerry’s promise of an “unbelievably small” military strike7. Vladimir Putin seized the opportunity to broker a deal8 to destroy those weapons, thus guaranteeing that Russia would control the destiny of their client state.

Fast forward a couple of months, and, ABC News reports9, “A U.S. cargo vessel equipped with special gear could be neutralizing some of Syria’s most dangerous chemical weapons at sea come January.” The Pentagon says that it could take 45 to 90 days to complete the neutralizing of some 500 tons of the chemical components used to make mustard and sarin gas. Damascus has declared 1,300 metric tons of weapons and chemicals.

Syria is still in a chaotic civil war, and rebel forces once again accused Bashar al-Assad’s regime of using chemical weapons in an attack Thursday.

CULTURE, SCIENCE & FAITH
Village Academic Curriculum: Is Our Children Learning?

It may seem like the Department of Education has been around forever – at least, it seems like that’s how long we’ve been debating its usefulness. But that’s not the case. In 1980, Jimmy Carter decided that American kids, who were arguably pretty smart already, could be even smarter if the federal government had a cabinet-level education office. Of course, that meant a lot more spending.

A little over three decades (and hundreds of billions of dollars) later our kids are not doing better in school. In fact, according to the National Assessment of Education – also known as the “nation’s report card” – their academic performance has remained stagnant. This is despite the fact that the yearly expenditure for each child has gone from $6,000 to $12,500 (in constant dollars), or a total K-12 investment of $115,000 per student.

Clearly we’re getting a lousy return, though no one is arguing that we shouldn’t continue to invest in our children’s education. However, we do need to adjust the way we invest, as international statistics bear out. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) test to 15-year-old students from 60 countries, found that American students placed 26th in math and science, behind most developed nations. Americans even placed below Vietnam, a developing nation, in math. Overall, American students are performing on the same level as those in the Slovak Republic, which spends only $53,000 per student for their entire education. Of course, leftists' perpetual answer to everything is to throw more money at the problem. Yet we know that government-reliance is not the path to success, but its largest impediment.

BRIEF OPINION
For the Record

Historian Victor Davis Hanson: “Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin toyed with the idea of boxing in Nazi Germany by joining with democratic France and Britain. When that gambit did not work out, Stalin suddenly flipped and came to terms with Hitler himself through the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact in August 1939. Stalin also later cut a similar deal with his former Japanese enemies in April 1941. … [The pact] turned both tyrannies loose to gang up on Poland and begin World War II. Russia got a free hand to invade Finland. With his eastern border temporarily quiet, Hitler turned west to attack France and bomb Britain. Once the Japanese signed on with Stalin to secure their own rear in Manchuria and Korea, they simply redirected their war efforts to attack Pearl Harbor and further expand the conflict. … A now heady Iran will use its diplomatic exemption to fund more terrorism and offer more provocation to Israel and the Sunni Gulf states. … The tough sanctions against Iran were finally beginning to work. The regime was getting desperate and running out of money to fund its bomb program and terrorist appendages. Then, suddenly, we caved – allowing Iran both a nuclear program and normal commerce.”